a letter to Lord Stapledean, in which he
stated "that he would accept the living, subject to the stipulations
named--namely, the payment to his mother, during her life, of three
hundred and fifty pounds per annum out of the tithes." To this he
received an answer from the marquis, very short and very cold, but
nevertheless satisfactory.

The presentation to the living was, in fact, made in his favour, and
he returned home to his family laden with good news. The dear old
vicarage would still be their own; the trees which they had planted,
the flower-beds which they had shaped, the hives which they had put
up, would not go into the hands of strangers. And more than this,
want no longer stared them in the face. Arthur was welcomed back
with a thousand fond caresses, as one is welcomed who bringeth glad
tidings. But yet his heart was sad. What should he now say to Adela
Gauntlet?

CHAPTER IV.

OUR PRIMA DONNA.

When Arthur first explained to his mother the terms on which the
living had been given to him, she refused to receive the income.
No such promise with reference to money matters between mother and
son could be binding. Were they not, moreover, one and the same
household? Would it not be in the end the same if Arthur should keep
the money himself? If it were paid to her, she should only pay it
back again; and so on. But the vicar declared that he would adhere
strictly to his promised engagement; and the mother soon fell into
the way of thinking the arrangement not altogether a bad one. She had
received intimation through the lord's man of business of the exact
steps which had been taken for the relief of her great pecuniary
distress--so the letter was worded--and it was not long before she
regarded the income as fairly her own.

We are so apt to be generous in the hot moments of impulse; but so
equally apt to be only coldly just, even if coldly just, in the long
years of our ordinary existence.

And so the family again settled down; the commenced packings were
again unpacked; the preliminary arrangements for living on a very
small income were thrown to the winds; the pony that was to have been
sold, and which with that object was being fattened up on boiled
barley, was put on his accustomed rations; the old housekeeper's
warning was revoked, as was also that of the old gardener. It was
astonishing how soon the new vicar seemed to fill the old vicar's
shoes in the eyes and minds of the people of Hurst